Alice Vol. 7 No. 5

Lori Greene, an Intro to Human Nutrition
professor at The University of Alabama,
expressed how tools such as Body Mass Index,
which assesses the ratio of height to weight for
a person, fails to take into account “​the ratio
of fat mass to fat-free mass, such as muscle.”
While it may be an accurate strategy to
assess the BMI of certain individuals such as
children, it is not one that the overall health
of a human being should be based upon,
similar to many other “health-determining”
approaches individuals often make the
mistake to consider. Greene went on to
explain the relativity of health and the way
in which society’s standards of health fail to
apply to every person.
“A healthy individual may also display
‘healthy’ in different ways and it is likely
difficult for most individuals to portray the
perfect picture of health in all areas of life,”
said Greene. “Nutrition and the foods we eat
are important for a healthy lifestyle, but a
picture-perfect diet cannot be obtained every
day, even if Instagram or TikTok makes us
think it is possible to see what other people
eat in a day.”
The complexity of health cannot be isolated to
one standard created by social media. Health
is not and has never been a state determined
by appearance and comparisons, especially
without consideration for the other aspects of
health including mental health.
While standards of health are naturally
developed and bloomed in the minds of
individuals in this society, it is important to
accept their false foundation. Not only do the
standards of what it looks like to be healthy or
unhealthy have the power to have an incorrect
vision of our overall well-being, but they also
blind people from understanding the key
concept of the conditions necessary to live and
prosper while doing so.
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